


Strength of Friendship

by aro_ace_rose_weasley



Series: Seven Years of Marauding [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Badass Lily Evans, Bisexual Lily Evans, Bisexual Remus Lupin, Coming Out, Gen, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Remus Lupin & Lily Evans Potter Friendship, The guys don't handle Remus coming out as well as they should
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-08 08:37:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14101551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aro_ace_rose_weasley/pseuds/aro_ace_rose_weasley
Summary: Remus thought that him being a werewolf would have been the secret most likely to make people run away from him, but what if it wasn't? Remus comes out as bi, and the rest of the guys don't exactly handle it well.This was inspired by the tumblr post that was circulating around a while back about James not automatically jumping into the role of Greatest Ally Ever, and I just kind of ran with it.





	Strength of Friendship

James, Peter, Sirius, and Remus were back in the dorm after the Welcome Feast, ready for their fourth year of chaos and mischief. They were busy sharing all of the details from their summer breaks that couldn’t quite be captured by the constant owls sent between them. Those poor owls must’ve been waiting desperately for the day they got to return to Hogwarts and finally get a minute to breathe since owling their parents was much less urgent than each other.

“How about you, Moony, anything exciting and scandalous happen over your summer?” Peter asked with a grin after finishing a story about how his very fit muggle neighbor and he had a fling.

“Well, I don’t know how much more scandalous I can get, after being here at Hogwarts in the first place,” Remus chuckled, working up the nerve to tell his best friends what he had been too scared to send through a letter. “But a few things may have happened.”

“Oooooh, do tell us all your juicy secrets, Moony,” Sirius laughed, sitting up in his bed.

“Well, I may or may not have had a thing over the summer, but there’s something I need to tell you guys first,” Remus explained, taking a stabilizing breath. “I’ve been meaning to tell, you guys, I just didn’t know how, and then it got so close to school-time that I figured telling you here, in person, would be a better plan, so I waited,”

“Hey, you’re rambling, Moony, take a breath,” James said calmly. “What could possibly be so bad about a relationship? You survived us knowing you’re a werewolf, what could you possibly be scared of telling us? You know we’re here for you, no matter what girl you were with over the summer.”

Ugh. But that was just the problem, wasn’t it? “Fine,” Remus sighed, “the thing is, the fling wasn’t with some girl.” The other three marauders stared at him confusedly. “I’m bisexual, which means I like girls and guys the same way. I’d had suspicions last year, but it wasn’t til I met Ian back home that I felt like I knew I was bi. He’s a muggle, so it couldn’t really get serious, but yeah, it’s a thing…”

For one of the only times in the seven years that the marauders had and would spend in that dorm, the room was completely silent. James was staring, true to himself, like a deer in headlights. Peter obviously didn’t know how to react, he was somewhere between confusion and disgust. Under Peter’s stare, Remus felt as if he had just grown a second head, this one bearing a strong resemblance to a flobberworm. Sirius, however, couldn’t even seem to bring himself to look at Remus. As soon as Remus explained what bisexual meant, Sirius found a really interesting piece of floorboard that he had never noticed in the past three years of living there and was intent on committing the image to memory.

“Look, I know I just sprung this on you, but could I maybe get some type of reaction? Look, I get it if you don’t want to have anything to do with me anymore, just, you know, say that,” Remus requested, feeling like he was about to have a heart attack. They wouldn’t really kick him out of the friend group, would they? I mean, he lived with them, but he could always try trading rooms with someone else, maybe Frank Longbottom. But that would come with a lot of explaining, and if his best friends, the ones who were cool with him being a werewolf, couldn’t accept him, how could he expect other people to accept him just like that.

“Of course we don’t want you to disappear,” James reassured, in a very not reassuring voice, and Remus was just waiting for the “but” that was sure to follow James’s sentence. “It’s just, it’s just, hard to think about, you know? Like, you like, _you know,_ and we’ve been sharing a room for the past three years and everything. How do we know what you’ve been thinking all this time, while we’re changing, or sleeping?”

“No, no, of course not! You guys are my family, everything is platonic between us, I would never sneak a peek at you guys, or, Merlin, anything else you guys are worrying about. My sexuality crisis happened outside of this dorm and all of us in it,” Remus said quickly.

“But, you like blokes, and we’re around all the time.” Peter insisted. “How are we supposed to believe you never fancied us?”

“I mean, you’ll have to take my word, cuz I can’t really prove whether I fancied someone or not, but it’s not like, just because I like guys, I have to fancy every single guy I come in contact with,” Remus explained. “Like, you guys can just be friends with girls, you’re not in love with all of them. I’m not going to do, nor have I ever done, anything weird because I accidentally fall in love with any of you, promise.”

James and Peter looked skeptical, but they nodded anyways. That piece of fancy floorboard must’ve been really intricate, since Sirius was still working to memorize every little nook and cranny He had never even thrown a sideways glance up at them while they spoke, leaving Remus absolutely clueless as to what was going through his mind. Sirius was loud and dramatic about everything, it was when he got quiet that the marauders knew something was wrong, and when he shut down, like now, something was really wrong.

James seemed to notice Sirius’s silence for the first time and hurried to fill the silence. “So,” he said slowly, “this thing with a guy this summer, did you guys, you know…?”

Remus’s cheeks might as well have been on fire. “No!” he exclaimed. “Merlin, we’re 14, James! He was the second person I’d ever kissed, the first guy, and I was lying to him about who I was! We hung out a bit, kissed a little, but that was it. We broke it off before I had to go back to my boarding school for ‘gifted students of science’ and that was it.”

“Oh… okay,” James replied. “Well, you’re obviously too important to us to lose you just because you like guys. We became illegal animagi for you, that’s not exactly something we’d do for someone we’re willing to kick to the curb. Right guys?”

Peter nodded hesitantly, but Sirius didn’t move. The pit in Remus’s stomach did not ease up very much. Sure, they say they weren’t going to exclude him now, but they sure as hell weren’t comfortable with Remus being bi, so he wasn’t sure it wouldn’t affect their friendship.

Suddenly, Sirius sprung up and practically ran out of the room.

James looked at Remus sympathetically. “Padfoot’ll come around, you know he will. You know how he gets, how his family gets.”

“Yeah, I know,” Remus sighed, feeling as if this night had gone totally wrong, but he couldn’t figure out, logically, how it could have gone much better.

“Anyways, I’m exhausted,” James said, changing the subject. “We should get to bed, and then in the morning I can tell you all about my new plan to make Lily fall desperately in love with me!”

Remus and Peter both chuckled nervously, happy for the change of subject. Remus got up and got changed in the room as usual, but he couldn’t help but notice Peter and James leave the room to change. Peter returned by himself, obviously uncomfortable with the idea of being in the same room with Remus alone, but Remus assumed James had stopped to find and talk with Sirius.

“Goodnight Pete,” Remus said, getting into bed, not wanting to force some awful, awkward conversation with one of his best friends. Peter just nodded in response.

Peter fell asleep after about half an hour of worrying, but Remus was wide awake, anxiety keeping him from even thinking about sleep.

 

Back in the common room, Sirius was sitting on the couch, his knees pulled up to his chest, his face stained with silent tears, staring into the fire.

James walked towards him carefully, not wanting to scare him. It didn’t work. He flinched hard when James softly called out his name.

“Hey,” James said, “I just want to talk, you and me.”

“I should’ve reacted better, I know,” Sirius replied sullenly, his gaze turning back towards the fire.

“Let’s not worry about Remus right now, I’m sure we all could have handled it better. I wanna ask about how you are,” James asked.

“How is he gay, James?" Sirius asked desperately. "He’s our best friend! We’ve been inseparable for three years, and we never knew! He dated Susan last year, for Merlin’s sake. It’s just wrong, isn’t it? I mean, I know my family is bigoted about everything, but isn’t it? I mean, doesn’t it bother you that we’ve lived with a fag for all these years, that he’s one of our best friends?”

“I can’t say it doesn’t bother me, but he’s Remus, Padfoot. He’s Moony. And I know times are kind of changing, and gay people are trying to be gay without being ashamed of themselves. We accepted him for you know what, how awful would it be if we turned on him now?”

“He never chose to be that! He dated Susan last year, why did he decide to be gay this summer. He could’ve just kept dating girls, but he made that choice,” Sirius argued.

“People don’t just choose to be gay, Pads, and Remus says he likes guys and girls, so maybe he liked Susan then, and then he like Ian. People don’t get to choose who they fancy mate. I mean, do you really think I would still be chasing after Lily if I could just choose who I like?” James explained, trying to pull a laugh out of his almost-brother.

He only got a brief half smile, but James figured he would take it. “It just feels wrong,” Sirius admitted.

“I know, but Remus still needs us. We’ll figure it out somehow. The four of us haven’t gotten away with so much together just to fall apart halfway through Hogwarts,” James replied with a smile.

“I guess you’re right for once, Prongs,” Sirius said with a genuine, albeit small, smile. “I’ll talk to Remus in the morning.”

“What do you mean? I’m always right! Anyways, come on, let’s go get some sleep. It’s been a rough night.” James replied, standing up from the couch.

“You go on up, I’ll be up in a little bit,” Sirius told him. James gave him a sympathetic look, but he ultimately decided to listen to Sirius and head upstairs. Sirius continued staring at the fireplace for another hour or so before he worked up the courage to head back upstairs. Three of the beds were full: two with sleeping forms, and the third one just pretending to sleep, probably for both of their sakes.

All the marauders had figured out the difference between when Remus was asleep or just pretending to so that they could try to keep track of how much sleep he was getting, but they never admitted it to Remus himself. The memory of how close he was to Remus made Sirius’s stomach tie into a knot, partially because of Remus’s confession and partially because in shame of how he treated Remus earlier. Quickly, Sirius jumped into his bed and wished sleep to come quickly. It didn’t.

 

The next morning was awkward. There was no other way to put it. Remus and Sirius had gotten no sleep the night before, so they were already on the edge, and not even Peter or James knew how to act with Remus’s newfound secret. Remus felt like he had to tread on eggshells, making sure he didn’t do anything “too queer” and scare his friends even more. Everyone but him left the room to get changed and Remus wished that he hadn’t told them about Ian, and instead made up some story where Ian was really Irene, a dark-haired girl with fierce eyes and a great laugh, and they had a beautiful heteronormative relationship that he would remember forever.

Sighing, Remus knew it wasn’t true. Not telling his best friends about Ian had weighed on Remus all summer, there was no way he could have stood to keep his sexuality to himself when he spent every day with them. Ever since sharing his furry little secret with the marauders, he had become so used to being completely transparent with them that any form of secret seemed impossible.He couldn’t imagine life without them right beside him, every step of the way, but he was beginning to think that he might have to realize that that particular dream may not be realistic.

Luckily, James, Sirius, and Peter showed back up at that moment, so Remus was rescued from his thoughts, even if reality wasn’t much better.

“Breakfast?” Peter suggests to the quiet room.

“Sure, we still need to hear James’s grand plan to prove to Lily that he’s her one true love,” Remus agreed, smirking. The smirk almost felt natural when he felt the mood of the room lighten. James’s quest for Lily’s love was something normal, safe, that hadn’t been altered by Remus’s bisexuality.

The quartet headed downstairs to the common room, but before he could follow Peter and James out the portrait, he felt a soft touch on his shoulder and turned around.

“Stay for a minute?” Sirius asked timidly, looking down at the ground, and Remus thought Sirius looked as if he’d gotten less sleep than Remus, which was impressive since Remus had only gotten about two hours of restless sleep.

“Course, what’s up?” Remus replied, pretending as if the night before had never happened.

“Look I, I owe you an apology for last night,” Sirius apologized. “What I did wasn’t cool, and I know you were already nervous, and my freakout probably made it way worse. This is one bigoted family concept I hadn’t had to conquer yet. I’m not gonna lie and say I’m totally cool with everything, but I’m going to work on it. Just, like, don’t hit on me or the others and I’ll work on destroying everything my family told me, not just blood purity crap.”

Remus smiled softly. Now _this_ was the best he could’ve asked for. The promise to improve. “That sounds like a fair deal to me,” Remus agreed. “And trust me, there is nothing but platonic feelings that I have for you guys, promise.”

Sirius made eye contact with Remus for the first time since before The Talk last night and returned Remus’s smile for a few seconds. Then, realizing what was happening, Sirius quickly dropped his gaze. “Awesome,” Sirius said, “now let’s go get breakfast before Wormtail eats it all. And I wanna see how Prongs makes a fool out of himself for Lily for the first time this year. I can’t believe she sat on the opposite end of the table as us last night!”

“Weird, it’s almost as if she can’t stand all three of you. Well, mostly just you and Prongs, she probably wouldn’t mind Pete if she could actually having a conversation with him without you two around, hovering,” Remus laughed, exiting the Fat Lady’s Portrait with a much lighter heart.

  


The light-heartedness did not last long. Remus knew he shouldn’t blame his friends, that they were trying, but he was so frustrated. I was already a few weeks into school, and his friends were still skirting around him as if they were afraid of him. Sure, they still spent the full moon with him, and they still hung out together in public, where there were a lot of people around, but they never spent one on one time with him anymore, probably too afraid of it feeling like a date, and any type of physical contact had disappeared as well. Before this year, it was pretty common for Remus to fall asleep on someone’s shoulder, or vice versa, or they would jump on each others’ backs, or even just casually throw an arm around each other. They were a very touch-centered group and the fact that they seemed so afraid to even touch Remus anymore hurt more than probably anything else.

Of course, there was also the look on their faces almost every single time he spoke to a guy outside the three of them. Aldophis Witherbee could ask Remus to pass the mashed potatoes at dinner and, when Remus agreed, they would assume that Remus was falling desperately in love with the bloke.

All these small impacts were wearing on Remus a little more every day. It had gotten to the point where Remus was beginning to distance himself from the others for his own sake. That would explain how he ended up curled on a couch, reading a book in the common room while James, Peter, and Sirius all went out to play quidditch.

That was, he had beenreading a book until Lily came and threw herself on the couch next to him.

“Alright, what’s up with you guys?” she questioned.

Remus sighed. He really should’ve known this question was coming, people had to be noticing that the inseparable quartet was beginning to separate. “Nothing’s wrong,” he lied, “the others just went to play quidditch and I decided I would rather stay inside in the warmth.”

“Yeah, maybe, if today was the only day you were on your own,” Lily replied. “Seriously, Remus, what’s wrong? The guys have been treating you weirdly all year, and now you’re hanging out by yourself more and more often.”

“Really, it’s nothing, Lily. I just, I just told them a secret and it freaked them out. Now they’re acting weird around me and so I’ve been distancing myself so I don’t have to deal with it as often,” Remus admitted. “I just never expected this to be the secret to tear us apart.”

“Wait,” Lily said, then paused for a second. “Does that mean, did they not know? I mean they were the ones that gave me the clues to figure it out!”

“What are you talking about? They had no idea! And even now, they’re too uncomfortable to say anything!” Remus exclaimed.

“Then what do they mean when they talk about your ‘time of the month’? Or your ‘furry little problem’? For Merlin’s sake, they call you Moony!!” Lily exclaimed, and Remus froze. “Oh my god,” Lily realized, looking at Remus’s panicked expression. “That’s not what you were talking about.”

“You, you know what I am?” Remus asked quietly. He knew his friends make a lot of poorly concealed jokes, but he never thought anyone actually paid attention or gave them any thought. The fact that other people might figure it out was mind-numbingly terrifying.

“Oh my god, this isn’t how I should’ve told you, if I ever told you at all! I mean, yeah, but I don’t care, you’re still you, it doesn’t change my opinion of you at all. And I don’t think anyone else would figure it out either, most people just tune you guys out so they don’t hear your jokes, and they’re not close enough to you to realize there’s a pattern to when your roughest days are, oh my god, I’m so sorry,” Lily rambled.

“Lily,” Remus interrupted, “breath. You found out, and as much as it terrifies me, there’s nothing I can do about it, it’s not like I’m going to obliviate you. I guess I should thank you for keeping my secret and not treating me differently, I don’t think many other people would do that.”

“You’re a crazy good person, you know that right? You aren’t even getting mad that I figured out what your biggest secret is,” Lily mused.

“Whatever, it’s not like that’s the secret causing me issues right now anyway,” Remus mumbled.

“Well, since I already overstepped my boundaries by a lot, can I ask what could possibly be that extreme that your best friends are panicking and don’t know how to act around you?”

Remus weighed his options. He didn’t have to tell her. Lily wouldn’t be mad, and she’d respect his boundaries, and everything would go back to how it was, which he didn’t like, but he could stop it from getting worse if she didn’t accept him. But Lily completely accepted him as a werewolf, so much so that he never even realized that she knew. And she wouldn’t be terrified that he might fall in love with her, since she already assumed that Remus liked girls. And it would be so, so great if Remus could come out to someone and be completely accepted.

Remus sighed. “I realized something over the summer,” he explained. “I realized, I realized that I’m bisexual.”

“What?” Lily exclaimed incredulously, and the pit in his stomach tightened. Maybe Lily wouldn’t be as accepting as Remus assumed. Well, he guessed it was too late to turn back now.

“Bisexual,” he repeated. “It means that I fancy girls and guys.”

“No, no, I know what being bi means, it’s just, _that’s_ why the guys are treating you like crap? I’m gonna go beat some sense into those assholes!” Lily declared, pushing her off the couch.

Remus grabbed Lily’s arm to stop her from marching down to the quidditch pitch and hexing his friends into oblivion. “Lils, don’t. They’re really trying to accept me, they’re just uncomfortable. It’s not their fault,” he protested.

“Being uncomfortable is an excuse for a few weeks,” Lily argued. “Remus, it’s November! At some point, they need to get their heads out of their asses and grow up! It took Alice, Mary, and Doe less than a week to chill out after I told them!”

“Wait, what?” Remus asked, confused. After she told her friends what?

“Oh right,” Lily remembered, sitting back down next to Remus. “Since we’re talking about all your secrets today, it’s only fair that I share one of mine, too. I’m also bi.”

Remus felt a smile grow on his face. Lily was bi too? He obviously knew that there were other bi people too, but he didn’t think that one of his closest friends would be. “Really?” he asked.

“Really,” she confirmed, returning Remus’s smile. “So if I don’t go out and hex the shit out of your friends for you, I just might go do it for me.”

Remus laughed, and Lily lit up, happy to cheer up her friend, and threw her arms around him. “Seriously, fuck them, I don’t know why you hang out with those assholes.”

“You’re one to talk,” he shot right back at her.

“Fine most guys make awful friends, is that what you want to hear?” Lily asked.

“Not particularly,” Remus replied, “but I guess as long as I’m in the minority of that, I’ll take it.”

“Meh, you’re not too shabby,” Lily told him, curling into Remus’s side and placing her head on his shoulder.

When James, Peter, and Sirius returned to the common room from the quidditch pitch an hour later, That was how they found Lily and Remus, asleep, curled up together on the couch in front of the fire.

 

“You do realize that just because I’m bi doesn’t mean you have to leave the room to change every day, don’t you? I’m gonna be honest, I have much better things to do with my time than ogle you,” Remus informed James without looking up from the book he was reading as James went to go to the bathroom to change one morning. He had gotten a lot less apologetic about his sexuality since his talk with Lily. Yes, it hurt that his best friends weren’t accepting his sexuality like he’d hoped, but it helped to know there was someone who supported him.

“I, I know,” James stuttered, obviously not expecting to be called out. “It’s just, it’s just that…” he couldn’t come up with a good excuse, but Remus was there to finish his sentence.

“You didn’t want to give me any chance to fantasize all about your irresistible body with my gay mind,” Remus finished for him.

“No, of course not Moony! I, I know you wouldn’t do that, I trust you!” James protested weakly.

“Yeah you trust me, but you sure as hell are too afraid to use that trust when it comes to anything that could even slightly be considered as gay,” Remus argued, standing up. “Whatever, I’ve got to go meet Lily in the library, I don’t have to kick you out of our room anyway.”

“Remus…” James said sadly, but he didn’t know how to respond. “You’ve been spending an awful lot of time with Lily, mind putting in a good word for me?” he joked weakly, poorly trying to change the subject.

James’s crush on Lily had pretty much been the go-to subject change every time the conversation got weird and awkward, and Remus was pretty sick of it. “You wanna know something, James?” Remus told James. “I can honestly say that Lily’s opinion of you has never been lower. For that matter, neither has mine. So honestly, try being a person Lils would want to fancy, and then maybe I could put in a good word for you.” With that, Remus stormed out of the room.

Remus knew that his roommates had been trying, but Lily was right, they weren’t really improving or getting any more comfortable around him. And Remus would have, no scratch that, he _had_ , just taken whatever he could get, but now that he knew what it actually felt like to be accepted this lack of acceptance within his best friends was just so infuriating. How could they not recognize how bad they were making Remus feel by isolating him?

Remus groaned as he sat at the table next to Lily in the library. They had a small couch and coffee table in the corner of the library so that they could talk quietly without disturbing anyone.

“Hey, so I know we said we’d do the goblin wars paper today, but is there any way we can research something more exciting? I need to get distracted for a while, and History of Magic is not going to do it for me,” Remus admitted, slumping down in his seat.

“You ask that as if I ever wanted to write that stupid paper,” Lily scoffed. “What happened?”

“Just general stuff with the guys,” Remus explained. “I got into with James about how they always have to leave to change now, which he tried denying that it was because I was bi, and then he tried the lame subject change to his quest for your love to avoid the awkward conversation and I snapped a little.”

“It’s not because you’re bi that they’re leaving the room to change, it’s because they’re homophobic assholes,” Lily informed him. “And James is a repulsive toerag that I have no interest in dating ever.”

“You know, today I can’t even convince myself to argue with you. Like I know I should because they’re my friends and decent people, but today I can’t even bring myself to care. Now that you and your roommates have shown me what it actually means to be accepted, I feel like I’ve lost all my patience,” Remus admitted.

“So what I’m hearing is that today is the day you’ll let me go hex them to a pulp?” Lily asked innocently.

Remus chuckled, laying his head on Lily’s shoulder. “No, but only because I know I’d feel bad about it later.”

“Fiiine, I’ll leave them alone,” Lily agreed begrudgingly.

“Thanks,” Remus said, and he wasn’t sure it was a sarcastic reply to her comment or if was honest, for all the support she’d given him. Maybe it was both. “Anyways, if we’re skipping out on the goblin wars, what do you want to look up? I’m thinking maybe charms or transfiguration?”

“Actually, I have something that I kind of want to try,” Lily admitted. Remus sat up so that Lily could show him. Lily grabbed one of the books that sat at the table in front of them and flipped it open, showing Remus the spell inside.

“The Patronus Charm,” Remus read.

“It’s a charm to defend yourself against Dementors,” Lily explained. “There’ve been whispers that You-Know-Who has dementors under his control now, so this could be a good spell to know. Plus it revolves around happy memories, so maybe that will be nice, too.”

“Looks pretty complicated for a couple of fourth years,” Remus said, his eyes already skimming over the pages. “Alright, you know I love a good challenge, I’m in.”

Lily and Remus immediately got to work on research. The problem with magic, especially when it came to complicated spells, was that it was, in fact, magic, and not science. There’s no one exact way to make something happen, it’s broad directions and improvisation that makes a spell work. A lot of the time, if students were struggling to cast a spell, it was usually because the directions were too specific, or they could even be wrong.

Therefore, the way that Remus and Lily researched complicated magic on their own was to find as many different books that explained the same magic as they could and compare the different sets of directions. They would mark down whatever was universal throughout all the directions, as those would actually be important to follow, and then they would make a list of other tips that were in some or most of the directions to keep in mind while trying to figure out how to cast the spell or make the potion.

Twenty minutes into researching, Lily sat up abruptly. “Merlin’s Beard! I forgot I promised I would help Doe pick out something to wear on her date tonight!” she exclaimed. “I’m so sorry, do you mind if I ran up there quickly and helped her out? I’ll make it as fast as possible, promise.”

“Oh, I get it, ditch me with the research and you’ll show up right in time to start trying the actual charm,” Remus teased. “Fine, just abandon me while I’m drowning in these books, I’ll be fine.”

“Awesome, I knew there was a reason I kept you around,” Lily joked, and then she turned and began jogging away.

 

Alright, so Lily _may_ have lied to Remus, but what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Instead of heading up to the Gryffindor tower, Lily jogged out of the castle, down to the quidditch pitch where she assumed a certain trio would probably be hanging out.

Her suspicions were confirmed when she saw a group of students all flying around above her.

“POTTER!! BLACK!! PETTIGREW!! GET YOUR ASSES DOWN HERE, WE NEED TO TALK!!” she yelled, and luckily it was loud enough to catch their attention. The guys descended slowly on their brooms, confused, while everyone else stared down at them from the sky. As soon as they landed, Lily grabbed the guy closest to her, which happened to be Sirius, and dragged him behind her, knowing the other two would follow, and yanked him into a broom shed. She turned the lights on and, when all three boys were inside, slammed the door shut and locked it with a _colloportus_ charm.

“Damn, Evans, if you wanted me this badly you could’ve just asked,” James flirted. “However,” he glanced at Sirius and Peter, “I don’t know if we need them here for this.”

“Merlin, fuck off Potter! I’m short on time, so you assholes better shut up and listen for once in your goddamn lives!” Lily exclaimed, seething. “Now what in Merlin’s name do you think you’re doing?”

The boys glanced at each other silently for a second before Sirius spoke. “Evans, you’re gonna have to be more specific. What do you think that we’re doing?” he asked.

“What you’re doing is throwing away your best friend, and, in my opinion, the only decent human being of the lot of you, away over a fucking stupid reason,” Lily told them.

“Evans, come on, we’re not throwing him away. He’s the one who keeps choosing to hang out with you over us,” James protested.

“He’s only hanging out with me so often because I treat him like a normal fucking person! You guys act like you’re afraid to be close to him, like that would make you gay by association. Well fuck you, haven’t you seen how upset he’s been about it?” Lily questioned.

“You don’t understand, Evans. You don’t get what it’s like to share your space with someone who might be looking at you or fancying you, at any time. It’s wrong!” Sirius argued.

“He’s not fucking looking at you like that! In fact, he’s usually scared to look at you guys at all, in case you get the wrong idea!” Lily scolded. “It’s the same as sharing a room with anyone else! It’s the exact fucking same as sharing a room with third-year, not-even-knowing-he was-in-the-closet, closeted Remus! I may not get what it’s like for you, because you’re all idiots who don’t deserve Remus, but I can see Remus’s point of view crystal clear, and it fucking sucks. If I had the option, I would just convince Remus to lose you guys completely, as you guys have been even bigger tool bags than usual for the past few months, but Remus is stubbornly loyal to you asshats, so get your act together and stop making him feel like shit. For fuck’s sake, how can you accept that he turns into a bloodthirsty creature every full moon but you can’t come to terms with him liking guys?”

There was stunned silence throughout the shed as Lily finished ranting. “Wait…” Sirius said slowly, realizing that Lily had just admitted that she knew Remus was a werewolf.

“Nope, I’ve gotta go get back to Remus and actually act like his friend. I swear, you better thank Merlin that Remus is so loyal, because I would hex the shit out of you if he didn’t ask me not to every day. So, fuck off, you’re all despicable, I hope Remus comes to his senses and dumps all of your asses, and I was never here,” Lily explained, then unlocked the door and stormed out, jogging back to the library, where Remus was waiting for her to return from helping Dorcas.

Still inside the broom shed, Peter, Sirius, and James stared out the door at Lily’s retreating figure, and Lily’s words began to sink in.

 

Remus had had a pretty good day. He and Lily had finished their research on Patronuses and went outside to see if they could actually cast the spell in practice. Neither had been able to cast a full, corporeal Patronus, but both were able to manage a white mist, which seemed like a success on the first day of practicing a new spell that was so complicated.

The problem Remus was having was with the memory, he knew it. All of his best memories were tinged with sadness and loneliness at the moment. The best Patronus he cast was while using the memory of his first night at Hogwarts, when they spent all night planning how to get themselves re-sorted. It was the first time Remus had been able to have a lengthy conversation without stressing about them finding out he was a werewolf, but the memory was tinted because now his friends were treating him like he was afraid they would when they’d realized he wasn’t fully human.

Another memory Remus tried was Lily and his study days, or Lily coming to help him feel better after a full moon. Again, these memories were ruined a little bit by the fact that it was Lily there instead of his roommates. It wasn’t that he valued Lily’s friendship less than his roommates, but the sting of their lack of friendship was still strong, and Lily and he had only grown so close together because the other boys had distanced themselves.

However, Remus didn’t believe Lily had the same problem with casting her Patronus. Remus was sure she had the happy memory, it had been her current mood that was stopping her from fully succeeding in the charm. Ever since she had returned to the library from helping Dorcas, Lily had been in a weird mood. Lily tried passing it off as frustration at an indecisive Dorcas when Remus asked her, but he knew it was something else since the mood lasted a lot longer than it should have if that was all that was wrong. Whatever it was, it kept her from truly being able to use her happy memory to create her corporeal Patronus.

Despite the lack of success, it had been a good day. It felt good for Remus put his effort into learning a new piece of magic and spending the day with Lily always meant fun and teasing and support. They even talked boys a little, as Alfred McLaggen and his band of quidditch players ran by. Those Ravenclaws may have been assholes, but they were good-looking assholes. It was the first time Remus had actually had a conversation about guys like that, and he felt uncomfortable, as if he was doing something wrong, even though he knew he wasn’t. Lily noticed this and subtly switched the topic to a few sixth-year girls hanging out by the lake.

Anyhow, Remus was beginning to make peace with the fact that he didn’t need Peter, Sirius, and James around all the time in order to be happy with his life. If they didn’t want to accept him for him, then they didn’t have to accept him. He could find other people who did, like Lily and her roommates. Remus didn’t just happen to stumble upon the three people in all of Hogwarts who could accept him as a werewolf, and Lily was beginning to show him that there was a larger queer community at Hogwarts than he had thought.

With this in mind, Remus did not hurry back up to his dorm when he got back to the Gryffindor tower. He and Lily hung out with Marlene McKinnon, Mary MacDonald, Dorcas Meadows, and Alice Fortescue, Lily’s roommates, and Benjy Fenwick, Martin Stein, and Carter Kane, a couple of fifth-year Gryffindors.

They talked for awhile, and Remus realized the sun had set without him noticing. It was still fairly early, but Remus knew that the full moon was coming up later that week, and he wanted to stock up on all the sleep he could get, so he excused himself from the group and headed upstairs.

Remus honestly didn’t expect his roommates to be in their room. He hadn’t seen them at all in the common room, and it wasn’t like them to hide out in their room for so long unless they were scheming. And Remus hoped they weren’t scheming, since he didn’t think he was far enough removed to be excluded from that, and he wasn’t sure how he would react.

This worry weighed on Remus as he walked down the corridor and pushed open the door. Yep, there they were, sitting on the floor in a little circle, their eyes actually serious and focused. It was their scheming faces.

It felt like someone punched Remus in the gut. The door made a noise as it shut behind him, and the three wizards turned to look at him.

“R-Remus,” James stuttered “We, we weren’t sure when you’d be back.”

“It’s fine,” Remus replied stiffly. “I was just coming back for a book I told Lily she could borrow. I’ll leave in just a second.” Remus walked over to his bed and grabbed a random book off the bed.

“Wait, Remus, can we, can we talk?” Peter asked as Remus turned to walk out.

“No, really, I don’t think that’s necessary,” Remus replied, making sure to hold back his tears. “Everything’s all good.”

Remus placed his hand on the door to shove it open, but a hand grabbed his arm and stopped him. “Moony, stop,” James pleaded, gently turning him around to face the other boys.

“Why do we need to talk? We’re going in different directions in our lives, it happens. I have friends downstairs, you don’t need to feel sorry that I’m not hanging out with you guys all the time, I’m not a loner,” Remus said, tears welling up in his eyes. He would’ve given anything to not be in that situation.

“But we don’t want to go in different directions,” Peter argued.

“Yeah, obviously we don’t think you’re a loner, Moons, you’re the one who keeps choosing to hang out with other people,” Sirius added.

Okay, so now they were putting the blame on Remus? Now he felt more angry than upset. “Yeah, can’t imagine why anyone would look for new people to hang out with after their old friends started acting scared to be around them,” Remus shot back.

Sirius’s eyes widened and he held his arms up in surrender. “Shit, sorry, that’s not what I meant,” he amended. “I just meant that we’re not having this talk out of pity, we know you can make friends. Also, I don’t think I have the capacity to feel enough pity to force myself to sit through this, this is awkward as hell.”

“Then what’s happening here?” Remus questioned, still feeling angry.

“Well,” James began, glancing back to where the other two were sitting, “we know you’ve been hanging out with other people because you don’t want to deal with us because we’re acting like assholes. And we don’t want you to drop us because we’re major tool bags who are too egotistical to believe that you would never be able to do anything except fall in love with us and do dirty shit to us in your mind.”

Remus could’ve sworn he’d heard those words before, and it only took him a minute to figure out where. “That fucking liar,” Remus replied. “Lily came and threatened you today, didn’t she? That’s why she was in such a mood today!”

“No, of course not,” Peter lied unconvincingly.

“Please, you just used the same phrases she uses every time she goes off on you,” Remus argued. “If you were trying to hide it, you should’ve at least came up with your own words.” Remus chuckled.

James blushed. “Alright, so Evans may have shown up and given us a few choice words, but it just got us to pull our heads out of our asses,” James admitted. “We all talked and decided we were being stupid, it wasn’t your fault. You’re a sweater-wearing, smart-ass, tea-drinking werewolf, you liking blokes shouldn’t be anything special.”

“You guys really think that?” Remus said skeptically. He would love to take them at their word, but he also didn’t want to go through the distancing again. “Because, you know, you kind of said the same thing back at the beginning of the year.”

“We, or at least I, assumed that I was trying and working on not being weird just by not saying anything and letting you be,” Sirius confessed. “I didn’t really think about what it must’ve felt like for you, without our wondrous beings around you like we always are.” Remus scoffed, but it didn’t have any bite to it, and Sirius flashed a quick grin before getting serious again. “Anyways, we’re really sorry for being assholes and not even realizing it. It shouldn't have taken Evans yelling at us to realize we were losing you, but is there any way you could give us another chance?”

“Please, the Marauders would crash and burn without me, how could I ditch you guys?” Remus asked, a smile growing on his face and the complete despair he felt when he entered the room had all but disappeared. They were talking about him when he walked in, that’s why they were so awkward, not because they got caught ditching him! “However, I think I have to go have a quick talk about lying with a certain ginger.”

Remus turned around and walked out, his heart feeling lighter than it had in a long time. Halfway down the staircase to the common room, Remus felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned around to see Peter standing two steps above him, not meeting his eyes.

“What’s up, Pete?” Remus asked.

“I just, you know we really are sorry, right?” Peter asked nervously. “Like, I know you acted like you believed us, but I want to make sure you really do. We’re not doing this just because Lily yelled at us, we really miss you.”

“I know Wormtail, I really do,” Remus reassured him. “You guys got weirded out and didn’t know how to act, I get it. I was never really mad at you, I was just frustrated that I was losing you guys and you couldn’t realize what you were doing. If it took Lily to make you figure it out, I’m just sad that I didn’t let her go after you guys earlier,” he joked.

“O-okay, I just wanted, I was just,” Peter stuttered, then, without warning, he threw his arms around Remus.

Remus had to grab the railing with one hand, but he managed to catch Peter without falling down the stairs. “Woah there, Pete,” Remus laughed, “I appreciate the hug, but I sure don’t wanna die by a fall down the staircase, and I hope you don’t either.”

“Right, sorry,” Peter apologized, pulling away from Remus.

“No apologies necessary,” Remus assured. “Now really, I just want to go thank Lily then I’ll be right up, promise. I’m really not trying to escape you guys.”

Peter nodded awkwardly and headed back up the stairs. Remus shook his head, chuckling, and continued downstairs. He tried to school his features into looking angry. “Oi, Evans,” he hollered once he reached the bottom of the stairs, “didn’t your mum ever teach you not to lie?”

Lily looked up, her eyes wide at the surprise of being caught and called out, but then she realized what happened and her eyes narrowed into a glare. “I’m going to murder those three,” she growled, jumping out of her chair and stomping towards the staircase.

Watching Lily storm towards him made Remus break, laughing as he caught her in his arms to stop her from actually murdering his roommates. “Thank you,” he whispered softly into her ear as he hugged her. Lily was confused, but she slowly wrapped her arms around Remus in reciprocation. “You made them realize what they were doing wrong, I think.”

“Wait, they really apologized?” Lily asked. “I didn’t expect it to be that easy,” she admitted.

“I think you standing up for me like that showed them that I was moving on and finding new friends, that they were losing me, and it was a wake-up call,” Remus explained. “Plus, they’re a lot better people than you think. They really are.”

“If they’re so great, then why are you down here with me?” Lily asked, pulling away from the hug. “Go hang out with your asshole buddies, I know you missed them.”

“I will, I just wanted to thank you for doing this, since you went and talked to them even though I know you don’t like them. Plus,” Remus admitted with a smirk, “I couldn’t miss out on this opportunity to call you out for lying directly to my face.”

“Whatever, I have nothing to apologize for,” Lily scoffed indignantly. “You weren’t going to do it, and I didn’t even hex them!”

“Well, color me impressed,” Remus laughed.

“You should be, they’re infuriating,” Lily agreed with a smile. “Now shoo, I’m sure the Terrible Trio awaits you. They haven’t pulled anything big yet this year, they’re probably itching to get you back into planning so that they may actually get away with something.”

“You’re probably not wrong,” Remus conceded good-naturedly. “Well, if you’re so desperate to get rid of me, I’ll take my leave. Night Lils, see you tomorrow.”

“Night Rem, I’m glad that it’s all working out.”

Remus spun around and jogged up the stairs back to his room. “Good news,” he announced as he pushed open the door, “I think I stopped Lily from wanting to kill you guys, at least for the moment.”

“You told her?” Peter asked, his eyes wide.

“It’s all good, I told her it worked, I think you guys are safe. Also, next time you’re trying to hide that someone told you something, use a different phrasing, it would help a lot,” Remus commented. Making jokes felt safer than delving back into the more serious topic at hand.

“Noted,” James smiled, but then his face grew more serious. “But really, we want to be better. Will you please call us out whenever we do something stupid without thinking about it?”

“I, I’ll try,” Remus admitted, feeling shy again. “It’s hard to call it out, because then it’s making a conversation out of it again, and I don’t want me being bi to be this huge fucking thing, I just want it to be back the way it was last year, except there’s a chance that sometimes I’ll like a guy instead of a girl.”

“Well, we’re gonna do our best not to do anything for you to call out, but if we do, we want to know, so we can get back to the point we were at last year,” Sirius explained softly.

“Yeah, I’ll do my best,” Remus agreed. “For now, let’s just drop it and do something else.”

“I like where your head’s at, Moony,” Sirius agreed quickly. “So I think we need to hit Snape with a new hex.”

“I can get on board with that,” Remus laughed, and just like that, they were the four mauraders again. It wasn’t perfect, and it wouldn’t be for the next few weeks, but it was progress, and that was all that mattered to Remus.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you guys so much for reading! If you liked this, please check out the rest of this series! It's just going to be a bunch of little stories about the Marauders at school, and I hope you guys enjoy it! I post new ones whenever I finish them!


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